Growing Pains
by primadonnabloodbath
Summary: Fourteen year old Raiden Pierce-Okamoto is talented in many fields. Absolutely none of these fields have anything to do with romance in the slightest. And it's driving him out of his head trying to come up with the right things to say to his best friend without making it sound awkward. One-shot, and a slight twist ending.


**Disclaimer:** Hasbro screwed over the franchise, but they still own the rights to them because life is cruel and unfair. When I win the lottery and buy the rights, I can safely state that I own these characters. But until then, I don't and I cry myself to sleep every night.

* * *

Ray's sketchbook, normally filled to the brim with drawings of monsters and duelists, was now a scribble-filled mess of failed love notes, all peppered with self-deprecating commentary. He was in the midst for writing a rough draft for the 47th time, when he finally just gave up, tore the page out, crumpled it into a ball and threw it into a nearby trash can. He sighed deeply and laid back on his bed. Ray looked over at his laptop, which was still open and on his IM page. The little green triangle next to his best friend's name was lit up brightly.

"Could call you right now," he muttered under his breath. "But what'd I say?" He turned back to face the wall, and a gentle three-beat knock sounded on his door. The door opened, revealing his mother, who seemed to be quite worried at her son's current state. She looked around the room, noting the various torn up and balled up papers in the trash can and floor.

"Ray, honey? Your dinner's getting cold, are you feeling alright?" she asked, maneuvering her way through the papers and to his bed.

"Yeah, don't worry about me!" Ray said, lifting himself up into a sitting position. "I've just been thinking about... stuff, that's all." He shifted a little bit, not fully making eye contact with her. "Uh, quick question. What was it like with you and Dad? You-you know, like how'd you get together?"

Ray's mother gave a gentle smile, and sat down next to him on the bed. "Well, I'd say it was pretty normal... at the time. Know that I know a little more about creatures, it's more or less the same, but it did explain quite a few things." She awkwardly chuckled. "Of course, our first date nearly ended up with your father getting impaled on a boardwalk game, so you probably shouldn't take all my advice to heart."

Ray shuddered. Given what they'd been through, that was definitely something he wouldn't want to recreate. "But," she followed up. "I'd say that if you really want to start a relationship with someone, it should be from the heart. And you should always talk to them beforehand." Ray nodded, and hopped off of his bed. "I'll keep that in mind. Anyways, what's for dinner?"

* * *

The next day was a Saturday, in the middle of June. School had just been let out the previous week, and it left the kids with more free time for themselves, and in their Kaijudo training. Ray woke up that morning confident in what he was going to say, exactly how he would say it, and what would happen afterwards. This feeling lasted for a good twelve minutes, until he saw Allie, Lucy and Gabe waiting outside of the dojo. At which point, all of Ray's confidence evaporated cleanly out of his body, and the feelings of romantic nausea came back full swing.

"So!" Ray said, in a voice that oozed unconfidence and voice cracks. "What's on the agenda for today?"

"Aw, c'mon!" Lucy said. "Don't tell me you forgot already! Today's the day I'm gonna become an Adept!"

"About time she did," Allie said, crossing her arms indignantly. "I can't believe friggin' Tareq got promoted before her!"

"Yeah, how did you forget?" Gabe questioned. "You're never usually this forgetful, especially when it comes to-"

"I don't know!" Ray yelled, in a voice that was louder than completely necessary. "I've been feeling kinda weird! Let's just go inside, and do this, okay?" Ray nearly slammed the glass door off its hinges as he walked inside, as his face turned bright red.

"Ah, the joys of male puberty," Gabe whispered as he and the two girls followed Ray inside. After going down a massive flight of stairs, down down and up, the four friends all gathered around the Duel Master's altar. Aside from a polite request from Master Jaha for Allison, Gabriel and Raiden to move out of the way, the masters proceeded to level up Lucy's gauntlet. The gauntlet, once a dull gray and brown, now became pitch black with neon green highlights. The masters all congratulated her, as did Allie, Ray and Gabe.

Lucy turned to Ray, grinning widely. "You know," she said. "Now that I'm on your level, how about we have a little test battle! Just you and me, alright?"

"Wait, right now?!" He turned to Allie and Gabe. "Uh, sure." At least this battle would help him to clear his head, and postpone any awkward jitters. The two then made their way down into the Dueling Coliseum, with Allie, Gabe, and a few other kids joining them. Lucy and Ray went to opposite ends, and summoned their creatures with a loud flourish.

"Tatsurian the Unchained!"

"Solstice Chanter!"

The snow sprite and the half-breed both erupted out of their respective portals, ready to battle. Ray quickly mounted his creature, while Lucy respectfully bowed towards hers. And then, she motioned for the sprite to attack, while Bob stood his ground.

"So, what's your plan of attack?" he asked. "I feel like I should go easy on her, but then again, she has been training hard-"

"Uh, actually, I was thinking we could multitask!" Ray said, softly. "Okay, uh, you just act on defense until i say to stop. There's something that's been kinda bugging me."

Tatsurian dodged, guarded, shielded, and even shot rockets repelling Chanter's attacks. All the while, he listened to Ray talking to him. Lucy was a bit weirded out by this. Why was he refusing to attack them, and why was Ray allowing this? Did he think that she wasn't strong enough? Whatever the case, she kept respectfully charging on with her creature, trying to see what Ray's angle was.

"I can't tell which is worse." Bob said. "That you're asking for relationship advice during a battle, or that you're asking for relationship advice from ME." He yelled in pain as the sprite suddenly scrambled onto one of his arms and started gnawing at the exposed flesh above the cuff with her razor sharp fangs. He roared and threw her off, lodging her into the wall. "I doubt I'm qualified for these sorts of talks."

"I guess I'm just still really shook up about this!" Ray replied. He looked over at the bleaches. Allie was talking to another female adept, and Gabe was worriedly watching over the battle. He noticed Ray was looking at him, and motioned wildly for him to get his eyes back on the battle. Ray had barely turned back before the Solstice Chanter used her nature magic to bash Tatsurian off his feet and into the wall directly opposite from where she'd landed. Ray toppled off of Bob, and faceplanted a few feet away. Allie and Gabe immediately rushed into the arena, and Lucy wasn't too far behind in helping Ray up.

"Jeez, you alright?" Lucy asked, pulling him back up to his feet. "I guess I probably should've chosen a weaker creature if I knew you were gonna go easy on me."

"No! I mean, I didn't mean to go easy on you. I've just..." Ray sighed deeply again. "I guess i'm just not feeling up to it today."

"Ray's not feeling up to dueling? Oh, man! This must be serious!" Allie said as Gabe could only gasp in confused shock. Lucy turned to her creature and said "Alright, we'd better wrap this up." Taking the wrong meaning from that, Solstice Chanter then proceeded to hum a gentle tune, and before Lucy could send her back, a massive earthquake shook the Coliseum, kicking up massive clouds of dust and shaking everything around. When the dust cleared, Bob was gone, Allie was pushed onto her back, Lucy was face down and annoyed as ever, the sprite was embarrassed...

And Ray had somehow knocked Gabe over and was now on top of him. The most awkward sixteen seconds of their entire young lives at this point ensued as they disentangled themselves from each other, blushing bright red. Ray cleared his throat loudly, and Gabe adjusted his sweater and his hat sheepishly. They stayed in a slightly less awkward, though still pretty bad state of silence as they watched Allie help pick Lucy up and see if she was alright. Ray broke the silence with a very blunt "So, is this the best time to say that I have a massive crush on you?"

* * *

 **A/N:** First off, WOW. I suck at writing romantic stories. Second, don't get me wrong, I love Ray/Allie (or Rallie, whatever), but I felt like there were way too many stories with them, especially on here. So, I wrote this for one of my other ships that I like a little bit more than that one. I'm not trying to hate on Rallie shippers or the ship itself, so please don't get mad at me for that. And for the sake of all that is good in this world, don't comment annoying anti-gay stuff or talk about how much you like another Ray or Gabe ship more than this one, alright?


End file.
